


Salt, sweat and sea. (Mr Porter's Pic Challenge)

by BarkingBard



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Labrador - Freeform, Multi, Reminiscing, Sons and fur babies, beach, northern Italy - Freeform, spring day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 08:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18407279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarkingBard/pseuds/BarkingBard
Summary: Its the first warm day of the spring and Oliver's sons demand a beach visit, which of course include Gonzo the dog.The salty air brings back his time in B.This is for the 'Mr Porter's Pic Challenge'.





	Salt, sweat and sea. (Mr Porter's Pic Challenge)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Erato_Muse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erato_Muse/gifts), [peachesatmidnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachesatmidnight/gifts), [Glendaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glendaa/gifts).



It was the first seriously warm day of the spring and the boys demanded to go to the beach. I piled them into the back of our old station wagon along with our six year old labrador, Gonzo. With lunch, towels, sunscreen, balls and an assortment of inflatable paraphernalia, we set off for the hour and half drive to the nearest beach. Once released from the confines of the car the boys (I include the dog in this, as he is possibly the most mature of our sons) exploded with the expected energy levels of being cooped up in the car for that length of journey.

Thank god for the wind blowing so hard that their woops and barking and calls were lost to the coast. Circling like vultures the gulls eyed us looking for an opportunity to relieve us of our lunch. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for them we had eaten in the car as we drove along the freeway. Gonzo barked his ass off at them and they didn’t seem to care about his boisterous defense of his family.

I let the three boys do what they wanted and walked along the jetty out into the choppy water. I sat at the end on the rail facing back to watch them frolic along the shore. I had rolled the cuffs of my sleeves and trousers as it was warmer than expected but I didn’t want to undress any further, as I wasn’t about to get a chill. It really wasn’t that warm with the wind blowing. The boys will be in the water soon enough, splashing about but youth will do what it does, and I will clean up the mess left by their youthful exuberance.

Freedom from parental observations is something rare and something that I liked to give them when ever I can. I could observe from a distance and make them think they were totally alone in their own tunnel vision of their childhood world. Nothing too bad could happen with Gonzo at their side and I was able to release some of their chatter out of my head.

The feeling of the metal railing on my backside was quite refreshing after the drive here. The salty sea air filled my senses and I was taken back. I spent hours sitting on that rock overlooking the coast near the Villa. I can’t come back to the sea without being transported back there. The hours that I spent staring out to sea. Day or night it was always the same. My soul melding with that beautiful place. All sea looked the same now, it was the view of the coast near B.

It’s been ten years since that summer in Italy. Where I had my awakening. It feels like minutes ago that I was there. The sun on my back and the carefree lifestyle. The hardest challenge was to make it look like I understood what people said to me. My Italian had improved over the six weeks but was far from perfect. I would just nod and give a knowing smile and like in those foreign films that I loved so much, I would speak volumes and say very little.

I sometimes dreamt of the nights that I sat out on that rock looking out to sea dreaming of my future, thinking what it would hold. Often it included Elio but not always. My dreams were varied and mostly full of thoughts of how I could do what I wanted to without my parents or family interjecting into my life. For the first time in my life, I felt truly alive. Just a few weeks in Italy, I was reborn. No one knew me, I could completely reinvent myself. As long as I didn’t offend anyone too much nor behave in a way that singled me out for scorn from the community, I could follow whatever whim I felt at any moment. Take a woman out for a midnight ‘Gita’. Who cared? Take a tradesman in a back alley. Again no one cared. Of course my time was punctuated and stolen by Elio.

His hands were the things that fascinated me first. The way he playfully touched everything. The table, a book, a bottle or a tree. He caressed every surface. Not like a child touching things, because they are incapable of stopping themselves. Elio embraced the world, like it was his instrument. Its texture resonated in his soul like the grooves on a record when contact is made, vibrating the needle. He couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Except from me.

He wouldn’t let himself reach out and touch. I had given him numerous opportunities to feel me. At the endless ‘dinner drudgeries’ or during our morning jogs he kept himself contained. I would put myself out there on display. Laying like meat in a butcher’s shop window. I could see him though my straw hat looking at me. He observed everything. My chest raising and falling as I breathed. Him staring at my crotch though my ‘oh so tight’ short shorts fashionable back then. But he would never reach out.

As we stood out in the sun that day on the piazza and he spoke instead of dying, the confession almost winded me. ‘Where the fuck did that come from??’ I could have screamed at him. I was exposed and uncomfortable and handled it badly, but I can still feel his fingers across my lips before he kissed me for the first time at his Berm. From nothing to everything. Damned Italians. So passionate but only once they decide it’s what they want. I was engulfed in him and his love.

I would give my life for just one more of those days. Sadly, as Heraclitus wrote, you can not step into the same river twice. By nature, some things can only stay the same by constantly changing. Our time together was finite, just six weeks in the Italian summer. No matter how hard you search, you will not find your lost heart in those murky waters.

It may surprise you, but I have been faithful to both of them all my life. I am not one to have my head turned by any pretty face, I have kept them both in my heart. Him over there and my wife over here. No one could move or touch a full heart. No one else could compete with them.

Each semester there is at least one who tries to push me in their direction. Flirting with me during lectures or pushing up against me during my office hours. It’s quite insulting really, I mean really, how could they compete with my two great loves. They don’t know me or what I need. There will only ever be these two. Him and her. Who do I love more? I have no idea, both have given me so much. One for a short intense time and one for 15 years. I choose to love both until my dying day. It’s like choosing between my children. Who do you like better? Or which eye could you choose to lose? Left or right?

I can feel him on my lips when I am near the sea. The salty sweat on his skin and the ocean spray on my lips takes me back. It all makes me impossibly hard. I run my hand over my lips like he did once. No one gets me as hard as the thought of the salt on his flesh and the smell of lavender soap and fresh floral sheets and of course the smell of the sea. My cock bucks in the confines of the fabric surrounding it, just as Sammy smacks Daniel in the face with a flipper. ‘Oh for fucks sake! This isn’t really my life.’

“Sammy, apologise to Daniel... You know Gonzo doesn’t like it when you are being mean to your little bother!”

**Author's Note:**

> So this thing happened fast. I am sorry gang. A bottle of shiraz and here we have Oliver speaking in the first person. Please enjoy. If its terrible just reply.. 'That's nice dear!' If you love it rabbit on. I am in your humble hands.
> 
> Love to you folk of the fandom. You have bought me so much joy. I hope I bring you some of the same.
> 
> *** Updated and finally edited.***


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